The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"He--he did it!" gasped Johanna.
"Did what?" said Todd, advancing in a menacing attitude, while his face
assumed a most diabolical expression of concealed hatred. "Did what?"
"Stop him! Stop him!" cried a voice from the other side of the street.
"Stop Pison, he's given me the slip, and I'm blessed if he won't pitch
into that ere barber. Stop him. Pison! Pison! Come here, boy. Come here!
Oh, lor, he's nabbed him. I knew'd he would, as sure as a horse's hind
leg ain't a gammon o' bacon. My eyes, won't there be a row--he's nabbed
the barber, like ninepence."
Before the ostler at the Bullfinch, for it was from his lips this speech
came, could get one half of it uttered, the dog--who is known to the
readers by the name of Hector, as well as his new name of Pison--dashed
over the road, apparently infuriated at the sight of Todd, and rushing
upon him, seized him with his teeth. Todd gave a howl of rage and pain,
and fell to the ground. The whole street was in an uproar in a moment,
but the ostler rushing over the way, seized the dog by the throat, and
made him release Todd, who crawled upon all fours into his own shop. In
another moment he rushed out with a razor in his hand.
"Where's the dog?" he cried. "Where's the fiend in the shape of a dog?"
"Hold hard!" said the ostler, who held Hector between his knees. "Hold
hard. I have got him, old chap."
"Get out of the way. I'll have his life."
"No you won't."
"Humph!" cried a butcher's boy who was passing. "Why that's the same dog
as said the barber had done for his master, and collected never such a
lot of halfpence in his hat to pay the expenses of burying of him."
"You villain!" cried Todd.
"Go to blazes!" said the boy. "Who killed the dog's master? Ah, ah! Who
did it? Ah, ah!"
The people began to laugh.
"I insist upon killing that dog!" cried Todd.
"Do you?" said the ostler; "now, this here dog is a partickler friend of
mine, so you see I can't have it done. What do you say to that now, old
stick-in-the-mud? If you walk into him, you must walk through me first.
Only just put down that razor, and I'll give you such a wolloping, big
as you are, that you'll recollect for some time."
"Down with the razor! Down with the razor!" cried the mob, who was now
every moment increasing.
Johanna stood like one transfixed for a few moments in the middle of all
this tumult, and then she said with a shudder--
"What ought I to do?"
"Come away at once, I implore you," said Arabella Wilmot. "Come away, I
implore you, Johanna, for my sake as well as for your own. You have
already done all that can be done. Oh, Johanna, are you distracted?"
"No--no. I will come--I will come."
They hastily left the spot and hurried away in the direction of Ludgate
Hill, but the confusion at the shop door of the barber did not terminate
for some time. The people took the part of the dog and his new master,
and it was in vain that Sweeney Todd exhibited his rent garments to show
where he had been attacked by the animal. Shouts of laughter and various
satirical allusions to his beauty were the only response. Suddenly,
without a word, Todd then gave up the contest and retired into his shop,
upon which the ostler conveyed Pison over the way and shut him up in one
of the stables of the Bullfinch. Todd, it is true, retired to his shop
with an appearance of equanimity, but it was like most appearances in
this world--rather deceitful. The moment the door was closed between him
and observation he ground his teeth together and positively howled with
rage.
"The time will come--the time will come," he said, "when I shall have
the joy of seeing Fleet Street in a blaze, and of hearing the shrieks of
those who are frying in the flames. Oh, that I could with one torch
ignite London, and sweep it and all its inhabitants from the face of the
earth. Oh, that all those who are now without my shop had but one
throat. Ha! ha! how I would cut it."
He caught up a razor as he spoke, and threw himself into a ferocious
attitude at the moment that the door opened, and a gentleman neatly
dressed looked in, saying--
"Do you dress artificial hair?"
CHAPTER LII.
TODD'S ANNOUNCEMENT.
"Yes," said Todd, as he commenced stropping the razor upon his hand as
though nothing at all was the matter. "I do anything in an honest and
religious sort of way for a living in these bad times."
"Oh, very well. A gentleman is ill in bed and wants his peruke properly
dressed, as he has an important visit to make. Can you come to his
house?"
"Yes, of course. But can't the peruke be brought here, sir?"
"Yes. But he wants a shave as well, and although he can go in a sedan
chair to pay his visit, he is too ill to come to your shop."
Todd looked a little suspicious, but only a little, and then he said--
"It's an awkward thing that I have no boy at present, but I must get
one--I must get one, and in the meantime, when I am called out I have no
resource but to shut up my shop."
At this moment a stout man came in, saying--
"Shaved--oh, you are busy. I can wait, Mr. Todd--I can wait," and down
he sat.
Todd looked at the new-comer with a strange sort of scowl, as he said--
"My friend, have not I seen you here before, or somewhere else?"
"Very likely," said the man.
"Humph, I am busy and cannot shave you just now, as I have to go out
with this gentleman."
"Very well, I can wait here and amuse myself until you come back."
Todd fairly staggered for a moment, and then he said--
"Wait here--in my shop--and amuse yourself until I come back? No, sir, I
don't suffer any one. But it don't matter. Ha! ha! Come in, I am ready
to attend you. But stop, are you in a very great hurry for two minutes,
sir?"
"Oh, dear no, not for two minutes."
"Then it will only just take me that time to polish off this gentleman;
and if, you will give the address I am to come to, I will be with you
almost as soon, sir, as you can get home, I assure you."
"Oh, dear no," cried the stranger, who had come in to be shaved,
suddenly starting up, "I really could not think of such a thing. I will
call again."
"It's only in Norfolk Street," said the applicant for the dressing of
the artificial hair, "and two minutes can't make any difference to my
friend, at all."
"Do you think," said the other, "that I would really interrupt business
in this way? No, may I perish if I would do anything so unhandsome--not
I. I will look in again, Mr. Todd, you may depend, when you are not
going out. I shall be passing again, I know, in the course of the day.
Pray attend to this gentleman's orders, I beg of you."
So saying, the shaving customer bounced out of the shop without another
word; and as he crossed the threshold, he gave a wink to Crotchet, who
was close at hand, and when that gentleman followed him, he said--
"Crotchet, Todd very nearly got me into a line. He was going out with
the person we saw go to the shop, but I got away, or else, as he said,
he would have polished me off."
"Not a doubt of it, in this here world, Foster," said Crotchet. "Ah,
he's a rum 'un, he is. We haven't come across sich a one as he for one
while, and it will be a jolly lot o' Sundays afore we meets with sich
another."
"It will, indeed. Is Fletcher keeping an eye on the shop?"
"Oh, yes, right as a trivet. He's there, and so is Godfrey."
While this brief conversation was going on between the officers who had
been left to watch Sweeney Todd's shop, that individual himself
accompanied the customer, whom he had been conversing with, to Norfolk
Street, Strand. The well-dressed personage stopped at a good-looking
house, and said--
"Mr. Mundell only lodges here for the present. His state of mind, in
consequence of a heavy loss he has sustained, would not permit him to
stay in his own house at Kensington."
"Mr. Mundell?" said Todd.
"Yes. That is the gentleman you are to shave and dress."
"May I presume to ask, sir, what he is?"
"Oh, he is a--a--kind of merchant, you understand, and makes what use of
his money he thinks proper."
"The same!" gasped Todd.
The door of the house was opened, and there was no retreat, although, at
the moment, Todd felt as though he would much rather not shave and dress
the man of whom he had procured the £8,000 upon the string of pearls;
but to show any hesitation now might beget enquiry and enquiry might be
awkward, so summoning all his natural audacity to his aid, Todd followed
his guide into the house. He was a little puzzled to know who this
person could be, until a woman made her appearance from one of the rooms
upon the ground floor, and cried--
"There now, go out, do. We don't want you any more; you have got your
pocket money, so be off with you, and don't let me see your face again
till night."
"No, my dear," said the well-dressed personage. "Certainly not. This is
the barber."
"Good God, Blisset, do you think I am blind, that I can't see the
barber. Will you go? The captain is waiting for me to pour out his
coffee, and attend to his other concerns, which nobody knows better than
you, and yet you will be perpetually in the way."
"No, my dear. I--I only--"
"Hoity toity, are we going to have a disturbance, Mr. B? Recollect, sir,
that I dress you well and give you money, and expect you to make
yourself agreeable while I attend to the gentlemen lodgers, so be off
with you; I'm sure, of all the troublesome husbands for a woman to have,
you are about the worst, for you have neither the spirit to act like a
man, nor the sense to keep out of the way."
"Ha!" said Todd.
Both the lodging-house keeper and his wife started at the odd sound.
"What was that?" said the woman.
"Only me, madam," said Todd, "I laughed slightly at that blue-bottle
walking on the ceiling, that's all."
"What a laugh," said Blisset, as he left the house; and then the lady of
the mansion turning to Todd, said--
"You are to attend to Mr. Mundell, poor man. You will find him in the
front room on the second floor, poor man."
"Is he ill, madam?"
"Oh, I don't know, I rather think he's grizzling about some of his
money, that's all, but it don't matter one way or the other. They say he
is as rich as a Jew, and I'll take good care he pays enough here."
"Mrs. B--Mrs. B," cried a voice from the parlour.
"Yes, captain, I'm coming.--I'm coming, captain."
The lady bounced into the breakfast-parlour and closed the door, leaving
Todd to find his way up stairs as he best could. After a hideous chuckle
at the thought of Mr. Blisset's singular position in society, he
commenced ascending the stairs. He accomplished the first flight without
meeting with any one, but upon the second he encountered a servant girl
with a pail, and Todd gave her such a hideous glance, accompanied by
such a frightful contortion of his visage, that down went the pail, and
the girl flew up stairs again, and locked herself in one of the attics.
Without waiting to ascertain what effect the descent of the pail might
have upon the nerves of the captain and the landlady, Todd pursued his
course to the room whither he had been directed, and tapped at the door.
"Come in," said a meek, tremulous voice. "Come in."
Todd opened the door, and stood in the presence of the man over whose
long tried skill and habitual cunning he had obtained such a triumph in
the affair of the pearls at Mundell Villa. John Mundell now, though, was
far from looking like the John Mundell of the villa. He sat by the fire,
wrapped up in a flannel dressing-gown, with a beard of portentous
length. His cheeks had fallen in. His brow was corrugated by premature
wrinkles, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down as though a look